Just An Elf
by Locrian-Mode
Summary: A jumble of simple little one-shots, each connected very loosely by this common thread: things that Bernard is not. (But mostly it's just a pile of Bernard stories for the sake of having a pile of Bernard stories.)
1. A Doctor

_A jumble of simple little one-shots written on the fly, each connected very loosely by this common thread: things that Bernard is not. (But mostly it's just a pile of Bernard stories for the sake of having a pile of Bernard stories.) Inspired by his line in the 1994 movie, "Toys have to be delivered. I'm not gonna do it. It's not my job. I'm just an elf." _

_Nothing too involved here, genres will run amok. Mostly pretty tame but I'll warn if the ratings go up for some chapters. No idea how many of these there'll be. Thirteen or three, maybe somewhere in between. _

_I own absolutely nothing. And if I do own anything, I refuse to claim it. _

_(Lastly, as is the case with my other The Santa Clause fics… Bernard in the first movie was wonderful because he had The Attitude, The Accent, and, well, he was wonderful. He sort of lost all that in the second movie, in my opinion. All of my fics are based off of Bernard Version 1994. In my canon, Scott married Carol but I'm going to forget that most of the second movie ever happened. Too much of it makes no sense. And my canon ignores the entire third movie. Except Lucy.)_

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**1: A Doctor **

**A/N: Bernard and Scott fluff and funny h/c. (When I say fluff I really mean manly bickering.) Takes place Feb. '96.  
**

**WARNING: If you don't like gratuitous bloody cringey ouch things, skip this. **

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"You want me to _what_?" asked Bernard, who had just teleported into the Miller's living room.

"Just give me a hand patching up the doorway. It'll take three seconds, _tops_," said Scott.

"Patching up the doorway?" the elf asked. "What happened? Why isn't there a door?" He followed his boss down the hall to the backyard doorway and felt an unnatural chilly breeze against his shirt.

"Laura and Neil's new door was delivered today," explained Scott, gesturing to the gaping hole in the wall, "so we took the old one off its hinges this morning in time to send it out with the garbage. Of course then we discovered that the new door is the wrong size. Really, it's not that hard to order the right sized door, but I guess Neil's ability to – "

"So you want me to do what, exactly?"

"Just help me with the plastic. It's getting dark and windy and there's some snow coming, I'd like to get this patched up before the kitchen turns into a snowdrift. Plastic gets really squirrely in the wind."

"Okay, boss," said Bernard, following Scott out into the snow, "but I wish you'd have told me to bring a coat."

"This'll take two minutes, you won't need a coat. Here's the stepladder. Let's do the top first."

"Thought you said three seconds. And what is this, four degrees out?" Bernard grumped, taking a handful of the clear plastic sheet that Scott had been trying to staple to the doorframe from the outside. He noted that Scott himself was wearing lined leather gloves, and bit back a comment about OSHA worker standards. A few steps up the ladder and it was clear to Bernard that it was not a trustworthy ladder; the rungs twisted on their spokes as he placed his weight on them. Scott merely smiled and hefted a large tool into his arms.

"What _is _that?" asked Bernard, and noticed a hose leading from the tool to the garage door.

"Pneumatic roofing stapler," said Scott, breezily. "We'll be using 16-gauge wide-crown staples."

"…You _do _want this plastic to come off eventually, right? Pretty sure we could be using Charlie's school stapler for this job. Where did you get that? Don't you need a license to use that?"

"Neighbor Steve is a roofing mechanic."

"Overkill," Bernard muttered, holding the plastic taught as Scott reached up and pressed the weapon into the doorframe.

"Come on, Bernard, we're males, aren't we?Why use a bb gun when you have a bazooka?" With that, Scott smiled like a boy and squeezed the trigger. The machine did nothing.

"Safety, Santa," sighed Bernard.

"I _am _being safe – "

"I mean the safety's on."

"Right."

Scott flipped off the safety and tried again; the machine let out a clean _POP _and the first staple was driven into the doorframe. Scott moved a few inches over and set the next staple. _POP._

"I hope you're replacing the doorframe too," said Bernard. "Those are going to leave holes."

"I'll leave that decision up to Neil… Mr. ordered-the-wrong-door-size."

"Where _is _Neil?" asked Bernard, shifting his cold-weakened grip to make way for the gun.

"Drove out to Home Depot to pick up the right sized door, but they were out…" _POP. _"So he went off to a Jeld-Wen but they were out too… Now he's off somewhere else but he won't be home for a while and…" _POP. _"… and he might not even _find _a door."

"Where's Laura, did she go with him?"

"No, she's upstairs sewing. She offered to help but it's too cold out, I said I'd find somebody else." _POP. _

"So you think it's too cold for Laura but not cold enough for me to wear a coat, huh?" teased Bernard, and stepped down a rung on the ladder as Scott started stapling down the side of the frame. The breeze was picking up and Bernard's fingers were going numb.

"Aw, come on. You're an elf, aren't you used to the cold?" _POP. _

"Why didn't you ask Neighbor Steve for a hand?"

"What, and admit I need help with this? I'm a man, I can't admit to other men that I need help. Besides, he'd probably make me screw up."

"Right, right."

Scott finished stapling down the left side and they moved the ladder to the right. Bernard once again climbed up the ladder, careful not to let the rungs flip out from under his boots, and took hold of the plastic. The wind whipped it out of his hands; he snatched it again and pressed it firmly to the doorframe. While Scott reached up to begin a new row, Bernard raised his gaze and was surprised and more than slightly horrified to notice that not far above his head hung several massive icicles.

"Say, Santa, you may want to remind Neil to knock these icicles off before they fall and impale someone." _POP. _

"Yeah," said Scott absentmindedly.

"Seriously, look at those things. They're like two feet long. You don't want them hanging above a doorway like that."

Scott finally glanced up and did a double-take, whistling.

"Wow, look at those widow-makers. Yeah, I'll let Neil know when he gets home." _POP_.

"None of these other houses have icicles like that. Attic probably needs more insulation," said Bernard.

"Yeah, that's, um…" said Scott, "that's… Say Bernard, I may have just stapled your hand."

"What? No you didn't, it's…" Bernard stopped regarding the icicles and looked across at his right hand. "Oh. You totally did, didn't you?"

For one very quiet moment, they both stared at the 16-gauge wide-crown staple embedded in the side of Bernard's pointer finger. Bernard wasn't convinced that it was, in fact, his hand, as he could feel nothing below his wrists.

He uncurled his fingers from around the plastic and retracted his arm, leaving a small smudge of crimson on the doorframe.

"Are you okay?!" Scott finally gasped.

"Bit of a belated reaction there," muttered Bernard.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry about that, I didn't mean to…"

"I should hope not," said the elf, and tried to lower himself down the rickety ladder one-handed.

"I was looking at those dumb icicles and my hands are clumsy with these gloves on, I couldn't tell I wasn't stapling the door frame!"

"My hands are numb, fortunately." Bernard landed safely on the ground and was disgruntled to note that despite the sluggish nerves in his hand, his blood was having no problem exuberantly departing his body where the two staple prongs protruded. He noted the beginning of a sharp ache in his hand.

"Geez, what do we… How do we get that out?" wondered Scott, finally setting aside the stapler.

"Pliers?" Bernard wondered, trying not to imagine how that would feel.

"_Pliers_?"

"I mean you could use your teeth, I suppose…"

"That's disgusting," said Scott.

"I was kidding."

"Pliers," Scott muttered, and headed into the garage. Bernard listened for a moment to the unmistakable sound of a man rummaging for the right tool. The wind sent ribbons of snow snapping across Bernard's face and into the half-attached plastic door; he shivered. Drops of blood were falling to the snow and disappearing, burning tiny droplet-sized holes through the snowflakes. A triumphant cry from the garage, and Scott returned, pliers in hand. He paused a few feet from Bernard, and regarded the elf. Bernard narrowed his eyes.

"What?" he asked.

"You're just standing there with a staple in your finger."

"What, you want me to do a dance or something?"

"You're not even grimacing."

"That's because my hand's numb. We've been out here way more than two minutes." Mostly the truth, but he could feel more than a small pain in his hand now.

"I'm just sayin'," said Scott, coming forward with the pliers, "most people would probably be, you know, panicking or something."

"I've had my tetanus shot. Careful with that," Bernard warned, as Scott tentatively took Bernard's fingers in one hand and lowered the pliers with the other. The elf braced himself for what would probably amount to not much.

"Maybe we should bring you in to the ER," said Scott, and drew the pliers away.

"No way."

"At least the clinic."

"Are you kidding? They'd want to do bloodwork. Once they saw the results they'd forget they were looking for tetanus. They've never seen elf blood before. And what if they saw my ears? Just yank it out already, this'll work."

"Fine," mumbled Scott, and positioned the pliers again. Out of habit, Bernard averted his gaze, but once again, Scott pulled away. "Look, I'm sorry, I just… This is gross."

"Well, _I _can't pull it out, my left hand is – "

"It's numb. Right. Okay, let's go inside."

Scott, pliers in hand, herded Bernard in under the flapping piece of plastic; the air was warm, and Bernard's hand almost immediately started to wake up. He shook out his left hand, hoping it would thaw before his right one. Scott had procured a handful of tissues, which he passed to Bernard, who set them aside.

"Pliers?" he asked. Scott dubiously handed them over. Bernard said a silent apology to Laura for what he was about to do to her kitchen sink before he poised himself above the faucet and, stubbornly refusing to think too much about it, wrenched the staple from his finger.

"Aw, that's gross," said Scott, who was watching from behind Bernard's shoulder. Bernard said nothing, because he was afraid if he opened his mouth he'd hear himself agreeing with his boss. With the staple out of the way, there seemed to be nothing stopping the flow of blood. He flipped on the faucet and watched as deeply pink water swooshed away down the drain… and kept swooshing away.

"Hand me those tissues," Bernard said. Scott fetched them, and Bernard turned the water off.

"This is ridiculous," Bernard muttered, pressing the tissues to his finger in what appeared to be an extremely unsuccessful attempt at stemming the flow.

"I'll get more," said Scott. "Why don't you sit?"

Bernard sat, and then stood back up; better to stand above the sink until things slowed down. Scott returned with a box of tissues and Bernard gracelessly dropped the old ones in favor of clean ones.

"I am _so _sorry," Scott said, still hovering a safe distance away.

"It's fine," said Bernard, wondering if this was the sort of thing regular people got worker's comp for.

"I mean I'm _really _sorry," said Scott.

"Forget about it, it's really okay."

"Doesn't _look _okay. Is your hand still numb?"

"That would be a no."

"Is it... Is the bleeding slowing down yet?"

"Um… no, not really."

"Okay, I think we should bring you into the clinic. By the time they realize there's something funny about the bloodwork you'll be gone and I'll just tell them they got a bad sample."

"Not gonna take that risk. It'll be fine… eventually…"

"Well do you need stitches? I mean how long's this going to take to stop? What if, what if a nerve got severed or something?"

"I don't know, I'm not a doctor!"

"What's going on? Why do you need a doctor?" asked Laura's voice, and both Bernard and Scott turned around to see her rounding the corner into the kitchen. "What happened? I heard your voices and it sounded… Oh my goodness, Bernard, are you okay?" she said, rushing forward.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it's just your ex-husband drove a roofing staple through my hand."

"Scott?!" exclaimed Laura, totally missing Bernard's smirk and giving Scott a look before grabbing Bernard's hand and trying to see past the mess of blood and tissue.

"What? I didn't mean to!" Scott exclaimed. Laura merely sighed, turned the faucet on, and pumped out some hand soap.

"Mrs. Miller," protested Bernard, "you don't have to – "

"Yes, but I'm a mom," she insisted, maintaining a businesslike grip around his wrist. "Not a doctor but almost as good. Just hold still."

Bernard shut up as Laura washed his hand, then wrapped it in one of her good white dish linens – completely ruining it, he noted to himself. She had him sit and keep his elbows on the table, putting pressure on his finger and holding both hands at head height. Scott, meanwhile, awkwardly dismissed himself to finish (carefully) stapling the plastic down, as snow was beginning to accumulate on the linoleum.

"Sorry about the mess," said Bernard, who was woefully watching as Laura cleaned not only the sink but also the spotted trail from the door to the kitchen. The sounds of stapling came creeping towards them along with a dwindling chill breeze.

"This is nothing," she assured him. "Did Scott ever tell you about the time he tried to use Steve's power sander on the new bannister?"

"Ouch."

"Yes. He had considerably more skin at the top of the stairs than he had when he hit the last step."

"Somehow… that's not hard to imagine."

Laura, smiling, shook her head.

"Men and their toys," she said, and Bernard, watching her stand up with a wad of pink towel in one hand, was struck with a sudden memory from several decades past; Laura, at seven years of age, holding an icepack to the face of a struggling boy named Patrick (who had spent the previous year teasing Laura about her funny-looking bangs), who'd just finished running his bike straight into a telephone pole because the hill had been icy; a very stupid idea, which is what Laura was telling Patrick over and over.

"What are you thinking?" asked Laura, and Bernard came back to the present. From beyond the doorway, Scott exclaimed happily that the last staple was in, and began to tramp around to the front door.

"Hmm?"

"You looked thoughtful," Laura said.

"I was just… Charlie's lucky. Is all."

She watched him, a question on her face, but he lowered his gaze to the linen around his hand.

"I'm getting that man a kiddie stapler for Christmas," Bernard said with a smile. "I'd better get back to work. Thanks, Mrs. Miller."

She began to ask a question, but Bernard had already left.

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**A/N: Despite how I treat him, I really do love Scott. **


	2. In Love

_**A/N:** Thanks for reading, and thanks to you reviewers (if you didn't review last chapter, skip this b/c it'll be super boring)- Easionia During, who helped me with a detail in a previous story and whose comments I'll always appreciate and value; MilleniumHeart323, who commented on a previous story of mine MANY years ago and I'm totally charmed that you showed up to comment on this one; and to WinterFrost15, who has written quite an amount of The Santa Clause fics already and I'm honored you commented on this one... Also, WinterFrost15, I should probably not have said that I don't like the second and third movies. What I really meant was that Bernard was one of my childhood heroes and when they changed him in the second movie I was so melodramatic about it that I just told myself that there was no way I'd like that movie and that I'd probably boycott the third. In fact I'd probably really enjoy both movies if I'd just chill out. ;) I'm almost ready to give the third another chance... but Curtis as head elf (cute as he is)? No onion domes on the North Pole buildings? What can I say, sometimes I can't handle change. Though I must admit... Jack is hilarious. :)  
_

**ANYWAYS. Onwards. One day in November, 1998...  
**

**2: In Love**

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"You're in looove!" Cupid whooped, several meters above Bernard's head; too far away for Bernard to grab the little man's bow and crack it over his head.

"I'm not in love," Bernard grumbled, wondering if he might lose Cupid by briefly teleporting to the top of a very windy mountain, possibly in the middle of a lightning storm.

"You're smitten!" Cupid insisted.

"I'm not smitten."

Bernard had had a typical day, for this busy time of year; challenging, to be tactful. It had started out with the surprise of having Cupid pop out of thin air to announce that a young lady in Pennsylvania named Danelle had just been dumped by her 'good-for-nothing turd boyfriend', after which she was so distraught that she took a long, tearful, midnight walk down onto the frozen lake. Her little sister followed discreetly, and predictably encountered thin ice. She fell through. Danelle pulled her out but Cupid, who always seemed to hang around in the most random of places, worried that they wouldn't get back before Danelle's little sister became hypothermic.

Bernard wondered bitterly why Cupid couldn't have helped Danelle's younger sister himself instead of popping up at the North Pole and forcing Bernard to teleport down to Pennsylvania of all places, but he wasn't about to waste his breath on actually asking Cupid. The elf easily found Danelle and her sister and clued the local authorities in on their location, but not before Cupid made another appearance and decided that Bernard and Danelle were meant for each other.

The elf's day had not improved since those midnight escapades. He'd tried to make himself hard to find but Cupid was extremely stubborn, and bent on convincing Bernard to face his new life changes.

"You've fallen head over heels for her, admit it. You can't get her out of your mind."

"Do I detect a hint of desperation?" asked Bernard.

"What? You think I doubt my own abilities? My arrows _always _hit their marks, mister."

"Yeah, I know," Bernard muttered, rubbing his shoulder. "That'd better not leave a scar."

"Isn't love worth it?"

"Yes, if any love was involved, but trust me… The only sentiment I'm feeling right now is _irritation_. I have work to do. Quit hovering. Honestly, of all the times you could have picked to bug me, you pick _now_. Pre-Christmas chaos."

"Well, you know what they say. 'Love strikes when you least expect it.' "

"Yeah, more like 'Cupid shoots at the most strategically and calculatedly inopportune time for the benefit of his own amusement'. Cute." Bernard barreled through some doors and took a quick left down some stairs, hoping Cupid's wings would get caught in the door or that he'd run into the ceiling. To Bernard's displeasure, Cupid managed to stick close… But still not within striking distance.

"Look, Bernard, I know you're very occupied with your job and everything but how old are you? All you ever do is work!" Bernard sighed and walked faster. Cupid continued. "I mean, isn't it time you spend some time… you know… with… with _somebody_? Don't you want… Don't you wish you had time for… For the love of love, would you slow down?"

"Sorry, buddy, I've got work to do."

"That's my _point_! You _always _have work! You should thank me for forcing you into this!"

Bernard did an about-turn and aimed his pointer-finger, and his best steely-eyed glare, at the little winged man.

"You're not forcing me into _anything_, got that?"

Cupid simply chuckled, which caused Bernard to suppress a growl. The elf spun on his heel and continued on. If he could just get to Research and Development, he'd be home free. Cupid never went into Research and Development. Too many pieces of big machinery; Cupid was afraid his wing would get caught in one of the moving parts.

"Besides the fact that I am _not _in love, what makes you think that would have worked? She's a human. I'm an elf. I can only see maybe six dozen ways that _wouldn't _work."

"Well I'm not going to _leave _you in love, my goodness what an idea. Look, she needs a pick-me-up, you need… Well, you need a few things… It'll benefit you both."

"You keep assuming this is actually happening."

"Look, friend," chimed Cupid, "here's an allegory for you. '_Just remember, in the winter, far beneath the bitter snow, lies a seed that, with the sun's love, in the spring becomes a rose_.' You're the seed, Bernard. You've been shot with a ray of love. Do you feel the warmth? Isn't it wonderful?"

"Okay, Cupid, thanks for spelling that out for me," Bernard said, and stopped again to face his opponent. "In fact, I _do_ feel the warmth in my shoulder; I think it's infected. You should bleach those things. Here's an allegory for _you_: If you have anybody drink a couple shots of whiskey, they're drunk. Dump a liter of whiskey on an escalator and nothing happens. Possibly it malfunctions and shuts down. Catch my drift?"

The flying man regarded him for a moment, eyebrows raised. Bernard turned once again, determined to make the last leg to R&amp;D before Cupid could think of a response.

"Are you saying… you're an escalator?" asked Cupid, confused and trying to keep up.

"It… no. That's not what I'm saying."

"Are you saying you want whiskey?"

"That depends. How long do you plan on bothering me?"

"Until you face the truth. You've been struck by one of my arrows. Don't deny your feelings for that girl by trying to confuse me with your weird allegories," Cupid said, wagging a finger at Bernard.

"Cupid, humans are as susceptible to your arrows as they are to inebriation. But I'm as susceptible to your arrows as an escalator is to whiskey. You will never meet a drunken escalator."

"True, but… it… That's not the point. The point is – "

"Have you stopped to think," interrupted Bernard, "that I'm not a human, and am, in fact, an elf?"

"Well of course I have."

"Have you ever shot an elf before?"

"I shot a nymph once…"

"Not the same. Not even close."

"What does it matter?"

"If you don't know yet I'm not gonna take more time out of my day to explain it to you but the bottom line is this: Christmas Elves are immune to your arrows. Okay? Humans, nymphs, ogres, trolls, just about everyone else is free reign but don't waste your arrows on us. In fact don't waste your breath on us either. We're busy. You come back and talk with me once you can suggest a way to create a power-efficient electromagnetic shield around the North Pole."

Cupid narrowed his eyes, either wondering what an electromagnetic shield was or wondering if Bernard was telling the truth about elves. Bernard continued before Cupid could say something.

"Danelle would appreciate your help more than I would right now. She'll never see me again, and I'll be really, really mad if your arrows just caused her heart to break twice in the same night," Bernard said, skewering Cupid with a reprimanding glower. "Are you gonna fix this for her? Can you take back what you've done?"

"Of course I can. I'm Cupid."

"And I'm an elf. Don't you forget it."

Cupid rolled his eyes; Bernard pushed through the R&amp;D doors with an unexpected amount of relief. Really, the guy was alright, for a little winged man wearing a sheet. Usually. But once in a while he was just… such a Cupid.

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**A/N: The fun part about this story is the following question: How does Bernard know more about Cupid's arrows than Cupid does? **_**Does **_**Bernard know that, or did he just make it up to get Cupid out of his adorably dread-locked hair? And will we ever know?**

**Also, I know this Cupid is probably sort of OOC. Cupid in the second two Santa Clause movies is probably not this ditzy but as you know if you actually read the blathering A/N at the beginning of this chapter, I'm not super familiar with the second two movies.  
**


	3. A Ninja

**A/N: **_WinterFrost15 –I'm glad to hear Cupid wasn't too OOC! You're right about the AU stuff, too, I'm just not used to going AU, it feels weird to write… Lol. Thanks for reading Keeping the Sun, too! I hope you enjoyed it. That story unfortunately no longer fits in my canon at all, though, so I can't really proceed with it. Plus I sort of lost my train of thought with that one. Which happens way too often. Thanks for your comment!_

_MilleniumHeart232 – Lol… If, in fact, Bernard DOES know more about Cupid's arrows than Cupid does, he hasn't told me how he knows it yet… but if he does, I'll let you know. ;) Yes, Bernard's sass was the best in the first movie. I probably love him so much because I thought it was funny when I was a kid to see a 'young person' sassing off to an adult. I never got to do that. Anyways, thanks for your comment! Here's a Charlie and Bernard chapter for you!_

**More fluff. Fluffy fluffy fluff. One of these days I'll write something that has a spine, but for now, FLUFFF. March 2002:**

**3: A Ninja**

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Something fishy was afoot in the Miller residence: Bernard had just gotten a radio call message from Charlie, who was apparently asking for Bernard to pop down to the house ASAP for 'a favor'. Charlie's message also included the specific request _not _to tell Santa what was going on – or anyone, for that matter.

Since Bernard did not, in fact, have any clue as to what was going on, he'd easily cleared that request. Now he stood on the doorstep of Laura, Neil, Lucy, and Charlie's home. Miserable, sleety, late-March snow was dropping out of the night sky; his least-favorite type of snow. He knocked, looking forward to coming inside. Maybe Charlie just wanted to catch up over a couple mugs of cocoa; it had been almost two months since they'd seen each other last, it was about time.

The door swung open and Bernard opened his mouth to say _Hello Charlie_, but he never got the chance.

"Bernard! Thank God," Charlie hissed, and plunged each foot into his respective boots before nabbing his jacket from off the coat hooks. "Thanks for coming so fast, I think I've almost caused an emergency."

"You… _what_? What's going on?"

"Come. Come on, come on," Charlie said hurriedly, stepping outside, slamming the door, and spinning Bernard around by the shoulder. "We have to hurry," the teen continued. "I really screwed up."

"Are you okay? Is everyone okay?" Bernard asked, almost tripping as he sped to catch up with Charlie.

"Yeah, yeah, everyone's fine, but remember in January when I visited Dad and you guys up at the North Pole?" Charlie had taken off south, ploughing through the slush that had accumulated on the sidewalk. He swung his arms into his jacket but did not bother to zip it up.

"Sure, yeah," said Bernard.

"Well, I brought mom's camcorder up there too."

"I remember you filming. Look, where are we going?"

"And I filmed the reindeer," Charlie continued, ignoring Bernard's question. "I got them flying. I filmed the Burg from up in one of the towers and caught the polar bear directing traffic. I… I got like _all _of the workshop, you know, with the elves and their ears, and I definitely filmed the ice ceiling over the city – "

"Charlie," said Bernard, who could feel a pang of disbelief and dread growing in his gut, grabbed the teen's shoulder. "Where's the tape?"

"Yeah, so then I came back here," Charlie said, talking faster now. "And I forgot about it, see, but Mr. Trickett made us do small group projects for our final for History and I was the only one in my group with access to a camcorder, so we got it all on tape and it was due today so I turned the tape in and now Mr. Trickett has a tape that begins with like fifty minutes of the North Pole."

For a moment they walked in silence; Bernard made a conscious effort to breathe out. Charlie chanced a glance over at the head elf.

"Well gingersnaps," said Bernard, finally.

"I'm sorry," winced Charlie.

"Don't apologize to _me,_" said Bernard, wondering how best to make Charlie feel better while simultaneously coming up with a plan to save the North Pole. "Wait, so where _are_ we going?" he asked. Perhaps Charlie already had a plan.

"We're going to Mr. Trickett's," Charlie said in an undertone. "He's just two blocks up the street."

"By your tone, can I assume that you mean to get the tape back?"

"We _have _to!"

"_We_? What do you want _me _to do?" asked Bernard, though before the entire question had left his mouth, he had a pretty sharp idea of what Charlie was about to say.

"You can teleport," Charlie hissed, a hopeful gleam in his eyes. "Just pop in, grab the tape, and pop out. I'll trim off the North Pole part, and then you can return it before he even knows it was gone."

"Great," mumbled Bernard. "Fool-proof."

"Yeah, it should be pretty smooth."

"Oh wait a second. Plot hole: I'm not a ninja, Charlie, I can't just go waltzing into someone's house, rummage around for a tape, and – "

"You're the ninja-iest person I know. Look, if you see that he's coming, just disappear again."

"That's not how teleportation works!" said Bernard. "It's fussy and dangerous and if I do it when I'm surprised by something there's a chance my particles will be scattered halfway across our galaxy!"

This caused Charlie to pause and regard the elf for a moment, but Charlie had obviously inherited the admirable yet often-problematic stubbornness of his father, for he plunged on.

"Then just make darn sure you're not surprised," said Charlie.

"Right, of course," muttered Bernard. "So easy."

"What if Mr. Trickett turns the tape in to the police? Or scientists, or something? Look, you said yourself, Bernard, I remember you telling me once how important it is not to, you know, provide proof that Santa and the North Pole and stuff exists. Because proof kills wonder and wonder is what powers the Christmas Spirit. Right?"

"Something like that. Look, obviously I understand the importance of keeping your teacher from seeing that tape but I also feel like him discovering a strange little man with pointy ears and a funny shirt standing in his living room might, I don't know, not be ideal either."

Charlie finally slowed down, looking wistfully down the street at the house, as if counting down the number of seconds he had before Mr. Trickett watched the tape. Sighing, he turned to Bernard.

"Okay, help me brainstorm."

Several seconds passed, during which the elf and the teen stared helplessly at each other. Bernard's brain, which he felt as if he'd left on the Miller's doorstep, finally caught up with him.

"Okay Charlie," Bernard began, in a hushed voice, "why don't you just knock on his door and _tell_ him that you accidentally left some vacation footage at the beginning of the tape, and that you'd like to trim it off to make it easier for him to watch your project?"

"Yeah, that'd work with anyone else, but Mr. Trickett is _really_ mean," Charlie replied in a conspirational whisper. "He'd probably dock points for that. He'd say I didn't turn in a finished project. That'd lower the grade like one whole letter."

"He'd really do that?" said Bernard, crinkling his nose.

"Yeah. He's awful. He just moved here last December, we're his first class. It's like he thinks his job is to reform the whole class system and reestablish order. I hope the administration fires him. I think he hates kids."

"Maybe he'd welcome your honesty and decide to let you fix the tape without docking points."

"No, seriously. He'd probably think I secretly still needed to finish editing the project or something."

"Which you do," Bernard pointed out, and blinked away snowflakes.

"… Yeah, okay, but it's not just _my _grade on the line, either, it's _everyone's_. There are four of us in the project, I don't want to be the reason they get bad grades!"

With that, Bernard pressed his hands to his face and suppressed a groan. As ridiculous as this was going to be, if he balanced what was on the line here, the best solution probably _did _involve him teleporting into the house to get the tape. It wasn't as if he'd feel bad about it; there were no laws against _elves_ sneaking around in people's houses. And despite his loud shirt and striking appearance, he had the ability, as every elf did, of causing someone's eyes to pass over him without seeing him – as long as the person wasn't actively _looking _for him.

"Bernard?"

"Okay," sighed Bernard. "Where's his house?"

"The little white thing, there," said Charlie, pointing. Two houses away. Single-story, no fence. They came to the edge of the last property before Mr. Trickett's, and Charlie's arm flew up and stopped Bernard from proceeding.

"What?"

"I think we shouldn't make any footprints from here," whispered Charlie. "What if he sees footprints in the snow and thinks I broke in and stole the tape?"

"He could only believe that if the footprints led to his house."

"Arg. Okay, just go, alright? He collected the tapes alphabetically, mine could be near the top."

"Does he have a wife or kids? Dogs? Anyone I should watch out for?"

"No. I mean I don't think so."

"Good." Bernard took a moment to observe the house and decide on a likely safe place into which he could teleport. There were few windows, though. A reflection on the blinds of one of the windows told him that a TV could be on somewhere in the room. He turned to Charlie.

"Look, he could be hoarding the tapes on his lap, or he could have dogs, or maybe I'll accidentally land on his head or something. In case this doesn't work, start thinking up a Plan B, okay?"

"Okay," replied Charlie, in a helpless sort of voice. This made Bernard want to succeed even more with Plan A, as he wasn't at all sure there was much hope for a Plan B. He decided that just inside the front door was probably a pretty safe bet, so he shook the snow off his hat, cast a limp salute to Charlie, faced the house, and teleported.

Presently, he found himself just inside the front door. The hallway was dark and he wasn't standing on Mr. Trickett's head. So far so good. In fact, he was standing on a welcome mat. His boots were tacking wet snow in a very un-ninja-like manner, so he very carefully scuffed off all that he could, all the while listening hard.

The TV was on in the background, and someone was shuffling papers. Besides those noises, the house seemed quiet, and Bernard couldn't pick up any trace of dog in the air. He breathed, and willed his nerves to relax.

He'd been in the office for far too long. He used to do stuff like this all the time. If he had a penny for all the times he'd been in a more challenging situation than this, he'd… well, he'd have way too many pennies. _Come on_, he urged himself as he crept up the dark hallway towards the living room. _This'll be easy. He doesn't know I'm here. He won't see me. _Bernard passed a bathroom, and then what looked like a darkened guest room, before he was able to look around the corner.

Mr. Trickett was sitting in a skinny rocking chair, facing away from Bernard and towards the TV mounted on the wall. The student on the screen was mumbling something about old Sweden and Mr. Trickett was tapping his foot impatiently. His hand was poised over a grading sheet, and directly to his right was a neat stack of tapes.

Bernard bit his lip; he'd have to sneak up behind the chair and find the right tape, hoping that Mr. Trikett had poor side-vision. And if the man were to get up and switch tapes while Bernard was back there, Bernard would have to be very careful; the chair had a checker back and Mr. Trickett would be able to see right through it.

Bernard lamented the fact that the man couldn't have just been sitting in an overstuffed armchair, by far the most popular in-front-of-the-TV choice for the rest of the nation. _Weirdo._ He crouched and took a step into the room and towards the chair when quite abruptly the presentation about Sweden was over, Mr. Trickett grumbled and scribbled on the paper for a handful of seconds before standing, cracking his back, muttering, and grabbing the next tape in the pile. Bernard backed out into the hallway again, peering into the room around the corner.

"Awful…" grumbled Mr. Trickett, ejecting the first tape from the VCR. He peered at the label on the tape. "And that was… Mr. Beacroft, Mr. Johnson, Mr. Stanley, and Ms. Baker." He set the tape aside, and glanced at the next tape in his hand. "Let's hope that Mr. Fox, Ms. Flores, Ms… can't pronounce that… and Mr. Calvin will do better."

Mr. Trickett reached to put the tape into the VCR, and Bernard felt the warmth drain from his body. He reached into a bag near his feet that he'd barely registered was there, grabbed whatever was in it, and chucked it down the next hallway with what he hoped was enough force to create a noisy diversion.

The sound of breaking glass came echoing back to the living room, and Bernard cringed. He spared a glance down into the bag and was horrified to see that it was full of tennis balls. He cringed again in panic as the thought flew through his mind that nobody ever had bags of tennis balls unless they also had a very energetic and probably murderous dog.

However, the only one to go careening down the hall after the ball was Mr. Trickett. Bernard noticed a set of tennis rackets leaning near the bag and allowed a small sigh of relief.

Mr. Trickett had dropped the tape on the carpet in front of the TV; Bernard hurried over, nabbed the tape, and allowed himself one half-second to calm down before teleporting away. He landed a few feet from where he'd left Charlie standing in the snow, but Charlie was nowhere to be seen. Bernard whirled around, peering through the falling flakes, and almost jumped out of his own boots when two hands landed on his shoulders from behind.

"Did you get it?!"

"Aaah! Cripes, Charlie, yes, I got it. Jeez." He turned to face the teen, who'd apparently been hiding within the brambles of the neighbor's hedge. "But I think I broke one of his windows. I'd better – "

Mr. Trickett's front door opened, and the man's eyes picked out Charlie and Bernard immediately. Charlie gasped; Bernard froze, wondering if Mr. Trickett would recognize Charlie from this distance. Perhaps if they simply ran –

"Charlie Calvin?" boomed Mr. Trickett, who had a huge voice for such a skinny man. Bernard hid the tape behind his back as Charlie let a disbelieving curse fall quietly from his lips, which Bernard was, under the circumstances, happy to ignore.

"Oh… Hello, Mr. Trickett!" Charlie called, and waved half-heartedly.

"Did you just break my window?" rumbled Mr. Trickett.

Charlie craned his head around as if surprised to see a broken window.

"Golly, Mr. Trickett, no, of course not! Did someone just now break it?"

"Yeah, it just broke now. Who's that person standing with you?"

"Oh this? Uh, this, he's, um, this is Bernard."

"Yeah, who's that? I don't recognize him from class."

"Brother," called Charlie, at the same moment that Bernard called out, "Cousin."

Bernard cringed again; hopefully he'd spoken louder than Charlie.

"I'm visiting," he yelled. "From New York. Charlie's showing me the neighborhood. We were just gonna turn around and head back because my boots are leaking but we didn't see anyone throw anything. Sorry."

An awkward moment passed; Mr. Trickett regarded them.

"Well… Goodnight, Mr. Trickett," Charlie finally said, waving. He turned away, and Bernard followed him. They walked up the sidewalk and Bernard could feel Mr. Trickett's eyes following them halfway up the block. When Bernard finally heard Mr. Trickett's door slam, he grinned and slugged his shoulder into Charlie's.

"Aw, you said _brother_!"

"Yeah, first thing that popped into my head."

"I'm charmed… but I'm also 100% prehistoric proto-Indo-European – in extra-mint condition, I might add – , and you're, like, Mr. Modern Potpourri, Midwest USA edition. We look nothing alike."

"Like he could see that from that distance!" Charlie protested, smiling, and reached for the tape. Bernard handed it over.

"He was just about to pop that sucker in the VCR," said Bernard. "I had to distract him. Really didn't mean to break his window, though. I'll have to replace that tonight after he goes to bed… _if _he goes to bed. He's got a lot of tapes to grumble through. Probably in a really bad mood now."

"Oh great," said Charlie, dragging his feet through the slush.

"He'll probably find the tennis ball I threw and think he's got a poltergeist. Hey, at least you have the tape, right? Say, what's your report on?"

"Queen Isabella I of Castile, and why she was such a big deal," Charlie recited in monotone.

"Oh. Her. Yeah, she was a big deal, wasn't she…"

Charlie's eyes widened and he stared at Bernard.

"…Did you _know _her or something?"

"Heavenly ribbons, no," Bernard said. "Thank goodness she stuck to southern Europe or we'd all have had to migrate to Iceland. Powerful lady but she sure gave me the willies."

"I can see why," said Charlie. "No mercy. She did establish control, though. Spain would have had another dark age if she hadn't come along."

"Yeah… maybe…" said Bernard. "Hey, I'll bet you'll get a fine grade on your report. I'll bet Mr. Trickett will identify with her."

"I hope so," Charlie said with a snort. They turned into the Miller's driveway and headed towards the door. "Mom and Neil are picking Lucy up from dance, they won't be back for a while. Come on in, have some cocoa while you wait. This should only take a few minutes."

Bernard gladly accepted and tried to placidly enjoy a hot mug of cocoa as he waited. He was not thrilled at the prospect of going back into Mr. Trickett's house, possibly for the same reasons he hadn't been thrilled about a business trip he'd had to take in 1501 to the Mediterranean, which had taught him to expect the unexpected. At least tonight he'd only have to deal with one pissy history teacher, if anything. If he could just tune his natural elfin sneakiness up to ninja level, surely he'd be fine…

* * *

**A/N: Whether everything goes fine or not is up to your imagination. **** Can you really break a window with a tennis ball? I don't know, I've never done it. I'm on the nice list. **


	4. A Keeper of the Peace

**A/N: **_MilleniumHeart323: I have a theory about how and why Bernard can teleport but it's part of a larger story (that I'll probably never get to__) that I hope to get to soon. Yes, I can't understand why he didn't teleport out from house arrest, which is one of my problems with that movie – it makes no sense to me! Which is part of why it's not in my canon. ;) Thanks for the review!_

_SafyreSky: Any news about the tennis ball yet? JK DON'T DO IT at least until after Christmas. :) __ I'm glad you approve of both Cupid and Bernard's characterization, although if you believe you don't have B-man's character down 100%, think again! I love your Bernard! _

_Snowflake888 and LadyElizabeth13, thanks for your kind reviews! _

**Story starts on December 18****th****, 1993. (As in a handful of days before Scott Calvin puts on the suit for the first time.) Kinbask isn't a real place, FYI. **

**4: A Keeper of the Peace**

* * *

Despite the warmth of Santa's office – the logs crackling in the hearth, the richly-colored walls and tapestries, and the thick-pile rug beneath the desk and chairs – the atmosphere in the room was chilly. The two mugs of cocoa on the desk had been hot ten minutes ago but they remained untouched and had now lost even the cordiality of their steam. Bernard wasn't in the mood to drink cocoa.

From across the desk in a high-back chair, Santa peered gravely over tented fingers at his head elf, who sat steely-eyed and cross-armed, trying not to let on how uncomfortable _his _chair was. Folding chairs had no place in Elfsburg, let alone on Earth, but Santa always reserved one for use when he wanted someone to feel cowed.

Bernard did not feel cowed; extremely irritated, yes. And more than a little antsy.

"It's December 18th," Bernard said, trying hard to keep his voice even. "Don't you think there's, you know, more important things for both of us to be doing right now?... Checking the sleigh manifest… finalizing the inventories… troubleshooting zero-hour complications – "

"I'm aware of the date," Santa grumbled, and punctuated his statement by narrowing his eyes even more aggressively. "Let's not change the subject. I need you to fully understand the consequences of your actions in Kinbask."

"As I fully understand, there _were _no consequences, sir," snipped Bernard, which caused Santa to throw up his arms and abandon a large amount of his composure.

"What do you call that footage from the surveillance traffic camera?!" Santa bellowed, rising from his chair. Bernard stifled a cringe. "What do you call the hoopla across the entire southern half of British Colombia? If _that's _not a consequence, what is it then?"

"We had that tape – and all of its copies – corrupted. You know that."

"How do you know you _got _them all? What if you missed one?"

"It'll turn into a local myth. Big deal. Everyone's got home videos of ghosts or bigfoot or whatever; how's this any different?"

"The police were involved. This could lead to CSIS involvement," snarled Santa. "How's that for a difference?"

"You think the Canadian Security Intelligence Service would waste their time investigating a rumor that some pointy-eared minor in Kinbask 'disappeared' after ignoring a couple of guards? Pssht. How could that be considered a national threat, and more importantly, how could any self-respecting CSIS agent take a rumor like that seriously?"

"Don't you _pssht_ me," said Santa, shooting an ugly look at his head elf.

"You're blowing this out of proportion," Bernard said, knowing he wasn't doing anything to better his and Santa's slightly-rocky relationship, but after what had happened, he wasn't in the mood to back down. Santa fixed him with an evil eye; it was not becoming at all on the man who would be spreading Christmas cheer in no less than six days.

* * *

_24 hours earlier… _

_Kinbask Mall_

_Kinbask, British Columbia, Canada_

It was December 17th and Bernard had not been happy about leaving the workshop to run such a silly little mission. The elves in the radio tower had picked up an incoming signal from the little mountain tourist town of Kinbask in south British Columbia. After Santa had been thrown into a small panic at the thought that someone might have the coordinates of Elfsburg and might be trying to contact them, he'd sent Bernard down to investigate.

"If someone knows we're here, we've got to find out why and shut them up," Santa had worried, sounding more than a bit like a 1920's mob boss. Of course he hadn't meant it that way. Bernard had teleported down and had been only slightly dismayed to note that a blizzard was brewing.

With his own tracking radio, it had taken Bernard about nine minutes to figure out where the signal was coming from. The Kinbask Mall had a used-toy shop, in which he'd found a transistor radio that the elves had put out a year or two ago. Bernard had taken a close look and had found that it was picking up not only the Elfsburg signal but many other obscure signals as well. Five minutes of investigating solved the mystery and now he happily radiod back to Santa with the news.

"Hey Santa," he murmured into his radio, standing in the furthest corner of the shop.

"Number One," his boss said. "News?"

"Yeah. So you know there's a huge cold front coming in fast here, causing some impressive inversion layers spanning nearly the whole Canadian length of longitude 120' W, which is creating an atmospheric duct that's making it theoretically possible for radio signals in Kinbask to reach Elfsburg. Of course we have a squelch code for that sort of thing but it looks like some amateur radio enthusiast has tinkered with this thing and created a general squelch override… which is actually really impressive."

"English, please, Bernard."

"It means… Because of the regional weather, and because this radio's former owner tinkered with it, this radio can detect Elfsburg. That's all. No cause for panic. I'm going to disable it. I'll be back in ten."

"Great. See you then." Santa cut the connection; Bernard sighed and set himself to disabling the offending radio. He worked quickly; Eric Clapton's voice was crooning softly over the Mall's music system, setting the elf's nerves on edge. Kris Kross had started singing before Bernard had finished, which was almost as cringe-inducing as Clapton's song had been, so Bernard was very nearly relieved when the music program was interrupted by an emergency winter weather announcement. He didn't pay much attention to it, as he'd planned on teleporting back north in a matter of seconds.

Job finished, he placed the radio back where he'd found it on the shelf. The moment his hand left the radio, the main lights in the store went out, and precisely one second after that, the store owner appeared at his side.

"Didn't you hear that announcement?" the man asked, his eyes wide in the shadows.

"What?" asked Bernard, surprised at being addressed and wondering if his ears were showing. He tried to subtly tug his hat down.

"Freak blizzard. Took the mall's power out. We're closing the stores but nobody can leave the mall. You finished here?"

"Nobody can leave?" asked Bernard, trying to act like a concerned customer.

"That's right. Take a look out those windows. That's a doozy, eh?" the man said, pointing out of the store front. Bernard walked out into the main mallway and stared at the great white expanse of street-facing windows. It _was _a doozy, he supposed, for non-arctic standards. Behind him, the owner of the used-toy-store was locking the gate, as were all of the other store staff along the run of the mall. The main lobby was now clogged with pre-holiday shoppers, laden with boxes and bags and small children.

_"Attention Kinbask Mall customers: Kinbask Mall Emergency Power now in effect. The city has issued a snow emergency. Due to hazardous conditions, please stay inside the building until further news."_

Bernard noted that a security guard and a law officer had moved to stand in front of the main doors. A woman approached as if to leave; the uniformed men held up their hands, said a few soft words, and the woman nodded and turned away.

The lobby was now very crowded, packed with all the people that had been hiding in the nooks and crannies of the shops, looking at desktops and tree ornaments and the newest romantic paperbacks. They pressed in around the TV mounted in the lobby – apparently hooked up to the emergency power – which was now showing a map of the area and the incoming weather. Bernard squinted; there was a lot of red. The marquee at the bottom scrolled past, warning people to stay in their homes and not to venture outside for any reason.

He looked around the rest of the lobby; it wasn't that big, and there were no tiny hallways down which he could sneak so he could teleport undetected. Fleetingly, he wondered if he could simply crouch in a corner and disappear. If people weren't looking at him, nobody would notice.

Frustration hit him as he spotted a security camera mounted in one corner of the mall. In fact, there were two. Three… four… He shook his head. It wouldn't do to be caught teleporting on film, though if it came down to it…

Maybe this would all blow over soon anyways. They couldn't keep these people cooped up in the mall in the dark like this for very long. Bernard wormed his way through the restless crowd to stand in front of the windows and stare gloomily out at the arsenic white of the blizzard, which filled the air outside so thickly that the buildings across the street may as well have been in Russia. He could only see the road because the headlights of the cars outside were making gauzy yellow orbs in the flying snow. There were already considerable drifts accumulating against the mall windows. With wind like this, he knew they were about to see some pretty wild snow sculptures take shape.

The marquee on the TV was now announcing that the emergency and snow-removal vehicles were having a difficult time reaching the 'hard-hit town of Kinbask'. Apparently the little mountain town shared emergency services with a nearby city. How unfortunate.

To his right, a man and his teenage daughter approached the security guard and law officer.

"Excuse me…" said the man. "Our apartment is just down the street. We can just – "

"Sorry, sir," the officer interrupted. "The superintendent's just issued a county-wide State of Emergency. Nobody's allowed out, for their own safety. I'm sorry."

"Oh," said the man, glancing beyond the guards and through the doors. "Well in that case, I guess we'll stay put, eh, Darla?" They turned away and wandered back into the melee of people.

Bernard turned once more to the windows; the cars outside were, predictably, no longer moving. One by one their headlights were turning off. He could now make out drifts coming up around the tires of the nearest cars. As he watched, one car door opened tentatively, but slammed shut right away. The blizzard was too fierce.

Bernard discreetly radiod back to the North Pole to explain the situation. Then he tugged his hat down over his ears again and leaned against a faux-marble pillar, wondering how long his patience would carry him. Ten minutes passed in the dim light of emergency bulbs overhead; the murmur of the crowd a white noise for the white outside. Thankfully, nobody seemed unduly upset, except a toddler who desperately wanted to visit the candy store, which was, of course, closed. The mother of the child had more patience for her kid than Bernard had for waiting around like this when there was so much to be done in the workshop.

Surely, he thought, there was a back door. If he left through the back door, he could teleport in peace. Even if someone saw him leave, by the time they got to the door and looked out, he'd be gone.

A minute later, he returned with dismay to the pillar. The back exit had been guarded. They were taking their state of emergency seriously. Five more minutes passed and he began to tap his foot.

A small commotion at the front door; someone had appeared outside and started banging on the locked doors. The guards scrambled to unlock the door and let in the small abominable mass of snow and shopping bags. Bernard smiled as several people came forward right away to help the newcomer brush away the snow and recombobulate themselves; his smile faded as it soon became apparent that this person was homeless. The bags she carried were obviously not from a recent shopping spree. How many more people were out there in the blizzard, within a town that had locked its doors?

One of the men who had helped her in, who was wearing a Vancouver Canucks Hockey cap, asked her just that; are there more people out there?

She nodded, and shivered into her sodden jacket. The Canucks fan draped his jacket over her shoulders and glanced out the window. He said nothing.

Outside, Bernard saw someone once again try to get out of their car; pushing the door open against the snow took several moments. They were able to take two steps away before being forced back to their car. Bernard wondered who the car-trapped people were. The drifts were now hugging the tops of the wheel wells.

He watched the guards for a moment; they, in turn, watched the people in the mall, sparing quick and nervous glances behind them out at the storm. Bernard pushed away from his pillar and approached them, having to consciously slow down his usual past-paced walk so as not to draw suspicion.

"Excuse me," he said to the shorter officer.

The officer looked at Bernard.

"Um," said the elf, not used to addressing humans in positions of authority other than Santa Clauses. "This lady said there are other people out there. Do you know if there's a search-and-rescue team on duty?"

"A State of Emergency is in effect," the officer replied automatically. "Nobody is to leave this building."

"I asked if there was a search and rescue team out there," Bernard said, equally automatically and a bit irked, before wishing he'd held his tongue. The officer looked at him, a bit surprised, and the taller guard finally spoke up.

"The emergency teams from the next city over are on their way. They'll have help on the ground soon enough."

Bernard nodded his thanks and wandered back to his pillar. The snowfall seemed to be lightening a bit, but the wind was picking up, pushing ever-taller drifts swirling around the cars. Two more people tried to open car doors; they couldn't push past the snow now.

A murmur bubbled up from the crowd watching the TV. Bernard turned to read the marquee, and his heart fell. A small avalanche had blocked the winding road in from the next town. Ploughs were working on clearing it out but the going was slow. The reporter showed a map of Kinbask and the surrounding communities; there was only one road in from the nearest city. The emergency vehicles would be delayed.

Out on the road, all of the cars had now turned off their headlights. He wondered how many cars were out there, immobilized in the drifts, and how long they'd been sitting there. The blizzard had been brewing for an hour or two before he'd even arrived; before the emergency had been declared.

Bernard left the pillar and returned to the guards.

"Excuse me," he said again, "they just said the emergency vehicles have been delayed up on the mountain. An avalanche."

"Yeah, we got the news," the short officer said, pointing at his radio. Bernard squinted at his ID badge: Walter.

"Does Kinbask have any kind of emergency service?"

"We got a few officers," said the tall guard, "besides you, Walter, probably all stationed around the schools… There's Ken and Dale … is that it? Don't we have a fourth officer now?"

"No, she went down to Revelstoke, didn't she?" said Walter. "Last month? Didn't they reassign her?"

"I thought she moved," the tall one said thoughtfully. Bernard's patience died.

"So there are people out on the streets that need help," he said, talking over their conversation. They both looked at him. The tall one looked unsure what to say; Walter leaned back and hooked his thumbs into his belt loops.

"If we could do something about that, laddie, we would. But we'll all just have to sit tight until the superintendent ends the emergency." The Canucks fan who had been sitting with the homeless woman looked up as the guard said this.

"As there could be lives at stake here," Bernard said, fighting with himself to keep his 'head-elf-voice' in check, "do you think it would be possible to put together a volunteer civilian team and see if we could – "

"Look, kid," interrupted Walter, "it's a nice thought but we have orders to keep everyone here safe and out of harm's way; that's what we're gonna do. Okay?"

"I think a civilian team is a good idea," said a new voice. Bernard turned; the man who'd been helping the homeless woman now stood a few steps away. "This woman was just telling me, there are people out there that can't help themselves. She said there's some outdoor shelters just two blocks away where we'd find many of the people. It wouldn't take much for some of us to bundle up and go help them back here."

"This isn't up for discussion," said Walter, whose face had become hard.

"The people out in those cars could use a hand too," said Bernard, carefully. "They've been stuck out there for what, one, two hours? They can't even get their doors open."

"Isn't up for discussion, boys," Walter repeated again.

Disturbing the public peace – such as it was – was not on Bernard's to-do list for the day. He clenched his teeth and turned away, and was surprised to find that a couple people had been listening in on their conversation. When he looked at them, their gazes fell to the floor or turned away, feigning disinterest. Bernard paced back to his pillar, distressed. He almost pressed the call button to contact Santa and tell him what was going on, but what would _he _be able to do? No help would come from the North Pole fast enough; Kinbask was on its own.

Someone had joined him by the pillar, leaning on the other side and staring out the window next to him; the Canucks fan. The man was thin and not much taller than Bernard; tufts of grey hair under his hat and salt-and-pepper stubble betrayed his age. Possibly not exactly fit for an Antarctic expedition… Then again, neither was Bernard.

"Pretty bad out there," the man muttered.

"Yeah," Bernard responded. He knew if he said anything else, he'd be committing himself to serious interference, something he wasn't sure Santa would be happy about.

He turned and caught the eye of the Canucks fan; something in the man's eyes told Bernard that they'd just agreed to something. _Alright then_, thought Bernard. _Here we go_. Together they left the pillar and approached the group of people who'd been listening in on their short conversation with the guards. Five of them said they'd be willing to go outside to help bring people in. It didn't take long for six more from nearby groups to join the volunteer task force as well.

Officer Walter had pricked an ear to the crowds, however, and now approached the growing clump of volunteers.

"Look here, folks. Real honorable of you to talk about doing this but I have to ask you to hold tight. I'm sure the weather will clear up soon," he said, glancing out the window. The winds were still whipping the snow into a frenzy; the drifts against the windows were almost too tall for Bernard to see over now. "Once again, we can't allow you through these doors."

"But… People out there need help," said one of the volunteers. Walter rolled his eyes in response.

"Look, _once again_, I have orders from the superintendent. He says – "

"Did you just roll your eyes?" Bernard snapped, unable to contain his irritation. "We _heard_ you the first time. Your superintendent isn't here right now and we're volunteering to – "

"Kid," said Walter, pointing a finger, "you'd better watch it."

Bernard bit his tongue. The officer was being completely unreasonable, but Walter was still right; Bernard had to watch it. _I'm not in charge here,_ he said to himself. _This isn't my turf. _He turned away from Walter and stared out the window to try to cool his anger.

There was a brief let-up in the snow and a curtain of clarity opened; Bernard saw through to the window of one of the cars outside. Someone was waving and pounding on their driver's side window, staring in at the people in the mall.

"That's it," Bernard muttered. He left the group to argue with Walter and scanned the rest of the mall patrons; he spotted someone close by wearing a wool scarf. Time to make a scene.

"Excuse me, sir," he said, "I'm gonna go out there for a minute, could I borrow your scarf?"

The young man stared at him, temporarily bewildered, before unwrapping his scarf.

"Thanks. Promise I'll give it back."

"Here, you'd better take my jacket too." The young man shrugged out of his parka and Bernard thanked him and made a note to send something special his way on Christmas Eve. He pulled on the parka, turned, and was irked to see that Walter had reclaimed his post by the door. Fine. He made a beeline for the door and had almost blown past the group of now-placated volunteers before the Canuck fan caught his shoulder.

"You really going out here?" the man asked him.

"See that person out there in that car?" Bernard said, pointing. Several of the people in the crowd turned and looked. The person in the car was still pounding on their window. "Better believe I'm going out there."

"They'll stop you," someone said, gesturing to the guards.

Bernard hoped they wouldn't try; he was a bit afraid he'd anger himself into simply teleporting outside. _That _wouldn't be good. But it would be better than another moment of inaction.

"Kid, come on," Walter said, as Bernard approached the front doors. "Now don't make me _make _you stop. Let's keep this peaceful. Just… Hey, stop. Stop right there."

_Man, what is this guy's deal? _Bernard asked himself. Walter seemed singularly intent on preventing one person from exiting the building. Bernard supposed he was being troublesome but he could care about that later. Now Walter reached up as if to push Bernard back; the elf easily sidestepped and slipped behind the tall guard – who didn't seem inclined to stop Bernard.

"I'm warning you," Walter started. His posture changed a bit; now he was prepared to spar with a teenager. "You try to step out that door and I'll – "

Bernard had no interest whatsoever in knowing what Walter would do if he were to step out the door, so he stepped out the door.

The blizzard hit him hard; he crouched against the wind and stepped knee-deep into a drift.

A few steps into the mess and he glanced back; Walter had not followed, but the Canuck fan had, as well as a dozen or so others. They pushed through the doors and out into the storm, arms held up to block their faces from the worst of it. Several more came trickling out after them. They shoveled the first snow-bound victim out and directed them to the mall, where Bernard could see Walter standing to the side, jabbering angrily into his radio. The tall security guard was gazing out the windows at the volunteers, almost smiling.

A few of the volunteers, not dressed for the incredible weather, fled back inside; several new volunteers came out in their place.

Darkness began to fall heavier than the snow. Over the course of two hours, Bernard and the group of rotating mall volunteers – as well as Officer Ken, who'd seen the group outside from within another building and decided to help – dug forty-three people and six dogs out of snow-bound cars and brought them back to the mall, and found seven people huddled by the previously 'open shelter' the homeless woman had referred to. The shelter had blown apart; three of the people were unable to move themselves through the snow.

After that, night had fallen completely, and the emergency vehicles from the nearby towns arrived. Some exhausted volunteers returned to the mall for the night. Others stayed out to help, and were not asked to go back inside. Confusingly, not three minutes after a pair of aid workers had thanked Bernard and the group he was working with for their time, a group of three officers approached.

"Sirs," said the one in front, and Bernard looked up to see that she was talking to the Canucks fan and himself.

"Yeah?" he replied, dreading what they'd say.

"We have a report here that claims you both were among a group who refused to comply with the lawful direction of an officer of the peace today."

Bernard, who was by now chilled nearly to the bone and whose limbs and back ached from having moved so much snow, wondered if these officers were real.

"Is that true?" she prompted, glancing from Bernard to the Canucks fan. The officers' faces were red from the cold and they were squinting against the wind, but Bernard could see a bit of scarcely-hidden amusement on their faces, with a small streak of what may have been admiration.

"Yeah, I did that," said Bernard warily.

"This report said that, ah, you acted against the superintendent's authority and disturbed the public peace."

"Disturbed the public peace my ass," said the Canucks fan indignantly. Bernard didn't bother to stop him this time. His frustration, which he'd banished through the past few hours' hard work, came back full-force.

"How old are you, kid?" asked the lead officer of Bernard. Bernard fought back the sudden urge to tell her the truth.

"Seventeen," he replied instead, through gritted teeth. He knew it wouldn't take long for the real story to come out and knew that none of the volunteers would end up in trouble. These officers seemed to have an idea about what had really happened already. So far the only unreasonable person involved had been Officer Walter.

"We have witnesses to describe the events," said the lead officer, "but until we can get this straightened out, we're going to have to ask you both to come with us to the station."

The three officers started to move, in a suspiciously pincer-like formation, around Bernard and his fellow disturber-of-the-peace. The elf stood frozen for exactly one second, feeling a bit like he was in a dream, before he looked at the Canuck fan.

"Thanks for helping. Enjoy the gift card I'm sure the city will give you." To the officers, he said: "Guys, I'm sorry, but I don't have time for this."

Then he teleported.

The teleportation was caught by a nearby traffic camera and quickly broadcasted to all district stations. Within three hours, all of the regional subdivisions south of Vanderhoof had a copy of the event. The elf network immediately and efficiently wiped out all known evidence, but not before Santa had had the opportunity to blow a fuse over the whole incident.

Bernard's meeting with Santa on the 18th had been completely unproductive; neither one of them would budge. There was nothing honest that Bernard could do to placate his boss, and there wasn't a thing that Santa could do to make his head elf regret what he'd done. Santa finally dismissed Bernard to go back to work, with an angry wave of his hand.

Bernard left, but did not go back to work right away. Instead he teleported directly to Wrapping. He wasn't in the habit of simply teleporting any time he needed to be somewhere, but perhaps, he thought bitterly, he would rebel against Santa by teleporting at every opportunity. That'd show the big man.

"Show him _what_, you idiot?" Bernard muttered to himself. He hadn't been this angry in a long time. Taking a breath, he got to work. Right now there was a personal mission to complete. Joining the ranks of wrapping elves, he shoved a specially-picked-and-embellished parka, as well as a new reindeer-wool scarf, into a box with some cheery tissue paper. He leered at the tissue paper, wondering what it was so happy about.

Kindly, the tissue paper replied to him. It told him that it was simply happy to be sent off to someone who'd done a small good deed for Bernard, and that it was pleased as punch to be wrapped around such a fine parka and such a quality scarf. Bernard paused, feeling the angry bubble in his gut start to recede.

"What are you doing in _here_?" asked a British voice by his shoulder.

"Oh. Hey, Quintin," said Bernard. "I was just… you know… listening to the tissue paper."

"I see. Good advice, I expect?"

"The tissue paper's right."

"It always is, isn't it?" said Quintin, with a smile. "Personal undertaking, this?"

"Yeah," Bernard sighed, shutting the box and reaching for a sheet of paper – not _quite _as cheery as the tissue paper had been. "And what brings the head of Research and Development to Wrapping?" Bernard asked his friend.

"You do, in fact. I was looking for you and happened to see you through the window. Our British Columbian field crew just collected a bit of intelligence I thought you'd want to hear about."

"Do tell," said Bernard, glancing up from his wrapping job.

"They just radiod in to say there's a little old man wearing a Vancouver Canucks hat down in Kinbask who just stated to a reporter that he'd like to give a big high-five to the disappearing white kid with dreads and a funny hat. I'm here to deliver."

"You? Why were you even in the radio room?"

"Happened to be passing by. This isn't a Santa-sanctioned mission."

"Ooo, risky. Personal undertaking?"

"Better believe it is," said Quintin, smiling.

Bernard and Quintin had, over the decades, perfected their high-five and had rendered it into something that they could both trust would smack them out of a foul mood any time of the year.

* * *

**A/N: Taking (possibly stupid yet likely helpful) action when (possibly stupid yet likely helpful) action needs to be taken FTW! Huzzah, homeskillets. **


	5. One of Roemer's Singing Elves

**A/N: Takes place on May 30****th****, 2003. Carol and Bernard. **

**This chapter depicts consumption of alcohol. _I do not necessarily support the views/activities expressed in this chapter. Necessarily. _  
**

**5: One of Roemer's Singing Elves**

* * *

A century or two ago, when 'having an office' was becoming the hip thing in the world of working humans, the Santa Claus at the time had decided that Bernard needed his own office at the North Pole. It had been a kind gesture, if a bit misguided. In his head Bernard called it his 'vault', for he used it as more of a storage unit for papers that he suspected he'd never want to see again – possibly similar to the offices of most humans, for that matter. The only difference between human offices and his vault was that he was never _in _his vault. His job demanded that he be roaming throughout the workshop, ideally in at least two locations at once. He certainly hadn't the time to spend _sitting. _

Yet, today, it was with a certain degree of satisfaction that he walked in, pulled the door of his vault closed behind him, turned to lean against it, and let out a giant huff of breath.

For a moment, he simply breathed, wishing the tremendous weight of responsibility that he felt pressing down on him would just sod off for an hour or two. All he wanted was a tiny slice of time when he could drop his worries and think about nothing in particular.

Then he remembered that a considerable portion of the weight on his shoulders was due to his shoulder-bag, which was quite full of paper. He let it drop to the floor, and felt marginally better. Abandoning the bag near the door, he walked into the vault (making a point not to look at the paper-jammed cabinets that lined all of the walls, not to mention the stacks on his so-called desk), stopped briefly to pour a drink, and then sat down in an armchair to stare out the tiny but redeeming window that looked out over the back of the Research &amp; Development Wing, one of the more unremarkable vistas of Elfsburg.

_Half hour of peace. _All he needed. Thirty minutes during which he had guaranteed peace, as he knew nobody would come knocking. Everybody at the workshop knew that Bernard was never to be found in 'his office'. Everybody knew that the only sure way to get a hold of him was by radio, and he had switched his off. Everybody was, in short, not _here_.

The door to his vault burst open and Bernard's heart leapt up into his head like a startled cat darting up a tree.

"_Kids these days!"_ cried the distressed voice of the new arrival.

Everybody knew these things, that is, except Carol – Mrs. Claus – , who, now five months into her new life at the North Pole, was still getting into the swing of the workshop, and didn't know that one could never find Bernard in his vault, which is why she had just now found Bernard in his vault.

She marched into the room, towing her stepson Charlie behind her. Her face was lined, as if she were very tired, but out of her mouth came evidence of some invisible well of energy; she was shouting. A constant stream of upset thoughts poured forth and Bernard was too busy trying to coax his heart back down into its native position to catch the bits she said at the beginning. Charlie, for his part, gave Bernard an apologetic grimace.

"Woah, woah a minute, Mrs. Claus," said Bernard, finally, once he had found his voice. He stood from his chair. "Just… Hold on, what now? Start over, you caught me at a bad time."

Carol took a breath, and in the brief silence before she launched in again, Bernard saw Charlie perform perhaps one of the greatest eye-rolls in all of history.

"I caught Charlie drinking!" she started, a bit of smoke lacing her voice.

"You did _not!" _huffed Charlie incredulously, briefly landing a disbelieving stare on her before lowering his gaze against the sheer flintiness of her own.

"Close enough! I caught Charlie and Cupid _reminiscing _about 'that one time with the wine last year'! That's _worse _than actually being caught!" Bernard allowed one of his eyebrows to crawl up a little as she continued. "He's a minor, for crying out loud! You're a minor!" she said, rounding on Charlie. "You have _six more years _before that's okay – "

"_Five,_" Charlie retorted.

"Five, six, what's the difference?" shrilled Carol. "You have _years _before that's legal!"

"Well, Cupid did say that if I – "

"Charlie, I don't _care _what Cupid said, it's up to you to make your own decisions!"

"Fine, I'll decide to move to Iceland," said Charlie. Bernard bit back a smile.

"What's that got to do with anything?" huffed Carol.

"Nobody blows their tops when young people drink in Iceland," Charlie said, a bit defiantly.

"Oh, you think I'm blowing my top, do you? Well we've found Bernard so now we can ask him."

"Ask me what?" asked Bernard, with trepidation.

"What," said Carol, "is the legal drinking age at the North Pole?"

"Um. Well," started Bernard, choosing his words carefully, "the North Pole isn't a land mass… so under international law it's not governed by any country."

"But doesn't the North Pole have its own, you know, legal drinking age set?" persisted Carol.

"It… does not, no," said Bernard. "I mean we're all… No, it doesn't. See we don't usually have young humans up here so we've never, you know, had to think about… that stuff."

"Well that was diplomatic," muttered Carol, and sighed. She turned her attention back to Charlie, which Bernard found to be a relief. "Well, Charlie, if the law isn't going to lay it all down for you, your conscience at least should be able to. After all you've been taught at school – I _know _how you kids are being taught to resist drugs and alcohol these days – I can't believe you'd do something like this. And _at the North Pole_, for heaven'ssake, could you be any more inappropriate?" She gestured around the room, apparently indicating the North Pole in general. "This is a place of _joy! _A place of _cheer! _And above all, a place dedicated to the children of the world! _Right, _Bernard?" she asked, whipping around and pinning him with her stare. He nodded, so as not to incur her wrath. Once again she turned to Charlie. "This is _not _an appropriate place to be imbibing, young man, not for a minor. Look at Bernard!"

Bernard jumped; his nerves hadn't been prepared for such assault. Charlie looked at Bernard, with a 'help me' expression on his face. Carol didn't notice; she was still on her soap box.

"Bernard is a _billion times _older than you, and _he _doesn't drink!"

"Hey now, I'm not _that _old," said Bernard, but Carol was ploughing ahead.

"What is that, hot apple cider?" asked Carol, gesturing to the mug in Bernard's hand. "Charlie, why can't you just enjoy hot apple cider, like that? Why do you have to fall for what all the other silly teenagers and Cupids are doing? Bernard, tell Charlie!"

"Um," said Bernard, once again caught off-guard, and clutching his mug defensively. "Tell Charlie what?"

"Tell him how _wrong _it was of him to do that!"

Bernard almost said, _I'm not his parent, _and then, after biting that comment back, he almost said, _Isn't that Santa's job? _But in the end, Carol's stare got the best of him. She was, after all, the wife of his boss. Wrong lady to cross on all accounts. Regretfully, he turned to Charlie.

"Ah-hem. It was very wrong of you to do that, Charlie," he said, in his most cardboard-like tone of voice, "very wrong indeed."

This seemed to bring Carol some degree of comfort, for her shoulders sagged from their previous up-in-arms position, and she closed her eyes for a moment.

"Okay, Charlie, you can go. But your father will hear about this as soon as I find him."

Charlie merely grimaced once more at Bernard before beating a hasty retreat, shutting the door quietly behind him. Carol strode straight past Bernard and plonked herself down in his recently-abandoned chair. Then she sniffed at the air suspiciously and zeroed in on Bernard's drink.

"That's a hot brandy, isn't it?" she asked him, gesturing to his mug.

"Yeah, it's a hot brandy."

"Thank heavens," she sighed, neatly swiping the mug from his fingers and downing a large sip; her face relaxed a bit and Bernard found himself relaxing a bit in turn. He could tell she was not about to leave, so he shifted a pile of records from his desk to make an open spot and hauled himself up to sit and wait. He watched, only slightly mournfully, as she took another swig of his drink.

"So… ?" he asked, because by this time his curiosity had finally come out of the cave it had been hiding in when Carol had arrived. Carol sighed once again, rubbing at her eyes with her free hand. There was a long pause, and when Carol took her hand away from her face, her expression had changed to desperation.

"I over-reacted, is what happened."

Carol was full of surprises today; Bernard hadn't expected her to come to that conclusion so quickly. He kept his expression neutral as she took another breath and continued.

"I don't know what's wrong with me today, I just… Scott's always gone, you know, I wish… And Charlie, I mean it's hard being a stepmom for a kid who used to go to the school I was the principle of."

"That's a big shift in relationships."

"And when Scott's not here with Charlie… I feel like things aren't stable. I don't mean with Scott and I," she corrected herself quickly. "I just mean I wish he was… around more." Her eyes bounced from the floor to the cabinets and into the mug she was holding. Bernard noticed her hands were trembling, very slightly.

"Well that's not really what's bothering you," he finally said. She looked up, and just a touch of her old Principle Newman glanced through.

"What?"

"There's something else."

"Oh?" she said, and raised her eyebrows, and, yes, her expression had reverted back to what she'd use to accost a student. "What's bothering me, Bernard, besides that?"

"I don't know, but Mrs. Claus, I can see it plain as day in your eyes."

Carol scoffed sadly.

"I wish it were that easy," she muttered.

"It is that easy, though. It's true, the eyes are windows to the soul."

She looked up at him to see if he was joking, but he was not.

"If you know what to look for," he continued, "a person can be practically spitting pieces of their soul out of their eyeballs in an attempt to be heard, or understood, or whatever it is. Your eyeballs aren't quite spitting but I think there's something else that's getting to you. Beneath the things you've already mentioned."

She continued staring at him, probably herself a little surprised this time. Her Principle Newman face fell away, which was nice because Bernard didn't like to be looked at as if he were a young delinquent. Carol then let her gaze fall down into the mug in her hands, as if she was seeing it for the first time. Presently, she looked up, and handed Bernard's mug back to him.

"Wow, I'm sorry," she said. "I guess you must have been having a tough day too if you were drinking _this_, I shouldn't have…" She shook her head and stood, looking a bit flustered. Bernard, puzzled, simply watched her. "You probably don't have time for this, I should go apologize to Charlie, I did blow my top."

She'd gotten her hand around the doorknob before Bernard thought of how to respond to this.

"Mrs. Claus, wait. Come back," he asked, setting his mug aside. "Let's talk. This is important."

"Really?" she asked, sarcastic, but it was more to herself. She wavered at the door; this was a side of her he'd never seen. "I'm sure Charlie and I can patch this up just fine."

"I'm not talking about that. You're one of the most level-headed people I've met, and I've met a lot of people. You must have gone off like that because there's something big weighing on you."

"Which is why I'm sorry," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. "This is why I wish I knew where Scott was. So I can talk to him about these things. You shouldn't have to listen to me, this is my own business."

"Well whatever floats your boat but this is _precisely_ my business."

"What do you mean?" she asked, wary.

"I mean I'm an elf, aren't I? The whole purpose of my existence is to make people feel better. Sure we all do this Christmas thing - that's why the North Pole is full of elves and not, you know, yetis or something – but if someone we care about is unhappy we're not gonna just 'be too busy'."

"So helping the wife of Santa Claus through mid-life crises is in your job description, is that what you're saying?"

"It's – … Yeah, that's what I'm saying. In a nutshell."

Carol sighed, let her hand drop from the doorknob, and walked back into the room.

"I'll be polite this time. Can I have that?" she asked, with a smirk, indicating the mug, still sitting on the desk.

"It's yours."

She settled herself once more in his chair, looking a bit more centered. Her hands had stopped trembling.

"You couldn't just, you know, beam out and _find _Scott and bring him back here, could you?" she asked.

"I wish. No, if I don't know where he is, it's not going to be my choice to pop in on him."

"What, he gets to just ring the bell when he wants to?"

"It's not really his choice either. It's magic's choice. Good thing, too, otherwise I'd be spending half my time helping him look for his suspenders. That man really knows how to lose his suspenders."

At this, Carol let out a laugh and nodded knowingly.

"You're not exactly one of Roemer's singing elves, are you?" she asked.

"Who the what now?"

"Larry Roemer, director of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, that stop-motion Christmas Special from way back? Well I guess not 'way back' for you…"

"Oh yeah, that."

"Itty bitty little elves with pointy hats, little elf uniforms. They had elf practice and sang corny songs and totally sucked up to Santa. They would have loved to help Santa find his suspenders. They were really cute."

"Cute? I think _we're_ pretty cute. We have sparkles."

"Not cute like Roemer's elves," she said, sipping the brandy. "Which is fine because their 'cute' was just out of control, if you ask me."

"Out of control, huh?" he mused, as non-pointedly as he could, but still she paused with the mug halfway to her mouth, then turned, and gave the floor just off to her right a funny, thoughtful look. Several moments slithered past between them, Bernard staring carefully out the window and Carol skewering the floor with her gaze. It had been an awkward way, Bernard knew, to get the conversation back on topic. Awkward and effective. Often the two went hand-in-hand, a fact that few people seemed to appreciate these days. Or any day, for that matter. As long as he'd been a part of human history, awkward folks had never been given credit for their effectiveness.

Of course, it must be admitted that once in a while there came a wholly awkward person who could not also be said to be the effective sort. Back in the day they were known as madmen or prophets; in some cases referred to as both over the courses of their lives but usually not on the same day, until history had had some time to grant hindsight.

"Think we lost you, there," said Carol's voice, and Bernard tore his eyes from the window.

"Hmm?"

"I'm the one with the brandy, aren't _my _thoughts supposed to wander?"

"Well that wasn't a full mug when you snitched it from me, was it?"

"I was too upset to notice." Carol sighed. "You're right, there's something else. It's hard to describe but it's… Well it's making me blow my top. I feel like I'm losing my handle on… on my responsibilities. Maybe it's just all the change."

"Huh."

"Well I guess 'losing a handle on responsibilities' isn't really it."

"Huh."

"More like I'm… I feel like there's a huge hole in my life now. Which is silly because my life before this was obviously missing a lot more than there is missing from my life _now._"

"Huh."

"I feel like I don't _have _responsibilities anymore!" she exclaimed. "I used to… I mean I used to be in charge of a whole _school _for heaven'ssake. I used to be in charge of thousands of children. I used to be single, I used to be in charge of my house. Of my own affairs. You'd think dropping all that responsibility would feel like _freedom._"

"One would think."

"But I've spent my whole life accumulating responsibilities," she said quietly into the mug. Trading brandy for thoughts. "I've collected them like kids collect those crappy supermarket candy canes. Blindly. Without knowing why, it's not like anyone ever _eats _those things."

"Ugh, I know."

"I guess," she said, squinting a bit and pointing a finger in a vaguely accusatory way at the far wall, "when I was a kid, I came to think that without… _control_… life would be hard. Without enough responsibilities to manage, people would just sort of float away and be lost." She paused. "And now all those responsibilities are gone and I feel…"

She did not complete her sentence. Bernard looked out the window for a moment, as if the backside of the Research &amp; Development Wing were really something to behold, which it was not. It was relatively new and didn't even have much in the way of historical interest to its architecture.

"So now you're having a small crisis," he supplied. "Because you've let go of a lot of your past control, you feel like things are now _out _of control."

"_I _feel out of control."

"You _are _out of control."

"Your confirmation isn't helpful, Bernard."

"I mean you're out of control in the same way that the workshop is currently and inexplicably out of eight-by-six-by-one packing boxes. Which is fine because the only thing that ever comes in boxes that size are bad socks. So it's okay."

She frowned and didn't respond.

"Maybe it's okay," he continued, "for you to let go of control."

She poured her gaze into the mug.

"Maybe," he said, "the hole in your life is really a door."

"_That_," she said, with a smile, "sounded like the brandy talking."

"That was completely me talking. Brandy may have had a hand in my decision to actually say that though. Anyways don't forget that your position as Mrs. Claus comes with its own set of duties and responsibilities which are very important. If you haven't picked up on them yet we might have to fire you."

"Pshht. My Mrs. Claus responsibilities aren't _responsibilities, _they're excuses to have fun. Comparatively. And you just be careful; if I tell Scott you mentioned having me fired, he'd fire _you_."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah."

"I have to go find Charlie," she stated. "Finding out about the wine thing with Cupid was just the last straw today but really… I need to go find him. I owe him an apology." She rose, setting the mug down on the desk. "Sorry I ruined your break but thanks for letting me talk at you."

"No problem. Come back any time. I won't be here."

"I really appreciate it," she said, from the doorway. "I mean it. Thank you. Hey, how are _you _doing?"

"Everything is fine," he replied, because there were only so many ways a person could answer the _how are you _question when it's asked by someone who is on their way out the door. She seemed to pick up on this reasoning, and squinted keenly at him.

"Is it really fine?"

"It is."

"Not sure I believe you. You look like you could use a year of vacation."

"I've got a lot of burners going, is all," he said, "but I wouldn't have it any other way. Give it a few months, Mrs. Claus, and you'll be happily insane too. Life at the workshop."

She left to find Charlie, and Bernard looked at the time. It had been half an hour. Time to get back to it. He supposed he should go accost Cupid first, though, a duty he accepted with particular relish. Any excuse to bother the little man. Had to get his digs in when he could.

Bernard hauled himself off the desk, went to the door, and picked up his shoulder-bag, which was, he realized, an inaccurate symbol of his load of duties and responsibilities, for it was causing his shoulder to cramp. He opened the bag, fished through its contents, found a particular sheaf of paper that he knew nobody would ever miss, and left it on his desk. Then he shut the door of his vault, and the sound of its shutting was a euphony, like the sound of a ribbon being curled to perfection. A sort of auditory sunrise on a cold morning.

_And that's the brandy speaking, _he thought. _Maybe._


End file.
